Re: record shows

[RWNomad <Kindari@jcc-uky.campus.mci.net>]

At 01:04 PM 6/11/96 -0400, Fang wrote:

>Slipkid, re:
>
>>My point to this whole rant is that it's not the 
>>bands so much that hate bootleggin (pirating is 
>>another matter) but the bean counters. The rich 
>>corporations want MORE MONEY. 

>Let's not get too silly here ... The situation is 
>a bit more complicated than "Robin Hood".

     I'm neither the Sheriff of Nottingham nor
Richard the <Fang>-Hearted, but the situation 
strikes me as being somewhere between "corporate 
greed" and simply "silly." I have no sympathy 
whatsoever for traditional publishers who want 
control over bootlegs in order to extract a few more 
dollars from the concert-buying public and 
coincidentally restrict the supply of live material. 
OTOH, I sympathize with the notion that artists should 
have the *primary* right to realize commercial rewards 
from their efforts. The question is where to strike 
the balance.

     First, I object philosophically to the extension
of copyright to and through exclusive control over 
public performances because it inhibits the spread
of ideas and information. 

     Second, as a matter of economics, exclusivity 
encourages concentration of publication rights and 
(1) increases prices, (2) decreases quantity, 
(3) decreases quality, or (4) some combination thereof. 
A few weeks (months?) ago, someone posted a cost 
breakdown to the list that suggested less than 15% of a 
CD price goes to the artist while 33% or more was 
allocated to the publisher and another 10-20% went to 
the seller. Fang may have the original post to confirm 
or correct my recollection ...

     The typical arguments favoring publisher control
-- that monopoly encourages innovation (meaning new
artists or more recordings from the same artists) --
are empirically false outside the music industry and
at least questionable inside the business. From what
I've seen, current publishers are akin to banks that
want to lend money only to people who don't or won't
need it. Without a demonstrated constituency supporting
an artist, the "investment" either will not exist, or
will be in the form of a loan that won't be fully paid
even after a platinum album or two.

     In these circumstances, it simply makes no sense
to restrict the non-commercial making and even 
distribution of public performances. For commercial
re-distribution, at most it only makes sense to impose
a fee equal to the artist's contract royalty with the
studio publisher -- around $1-2 per CD? That certainly
wouldn't kill the commercial bootleg market; it would
prevent commercial exploitation of artists and provide
meaningful competition to traditional publishers who
artificially restrict the supply and quality of live
music. It also might increase the ultimate distribution
and sales of "Live Rock" next year ... :-}

***Leaving soapbox mode***

Bob
Bad defeats Good then self-destructs ...